Tuesday, 21 January 2014

Film: 'THE WOLF OF WALL STREET'

I didn't think this film was anything like as remarkable as some opinions had led me to believe. With Martin Scorsese's name to it most people, including me, would automatically sit up and pay attention. Without his name I think this film would quickly have been forgotten.

Between Leonardo DiCaprio's lead character's rocket-like ascendancy to the stratospheric heights of wealth (through stock market fraud and bribery) and his inevitable fall, the film's drama is curiously inert. The attenuated central section is a plateau of excess marked by frequent drug-taking and debauchery, in which unclothed female bodies are everywhere in evidence yet male participation is only cursorily depicted, if at all (and coyly at that) - all illustrated by flashy lights, quick jump-cuts and brash, pumping soundtrack, obviously reflecting the effects of the copiously ingested drugs. The absence of any arresting development is broken only by our witnessing the falling apart of DiCaprio's marriage, which is itself as predictable as ABC.
At a full three hours the film is too long by far. After DiCaprio, with his slick telephone sales technique, has recruited his handful of loathsome, bratpack young cronies, without a single redeeming feature among them, we quickly get the point, as his office expands into a hundred or so employees whose sole conscience is dependent on making more money for themselves and the firm, where nary a sentence can be uttered without the obligatory f-word - as well as (naturally) regular 'c/sucker's and a few 'fag(gots)'. After the 'boss' has reached his pinnacle of greed it's only a question of waiting to see how and when he gets his comeuppance. But it's a long wait - and a not especially interesting one at that. (Even when it eventually happens I was expecting he'd be punished with something rather more severe).
There's only a little bit of physical violence, once to the DiCaprio character's wife in long-shot and another, being the sole instance which results in the appearance of blood, is that inflicted on a marginal figure, the only character in the film who, significantly or otherwise, happens to be gay.

Comparisons with certain other films are plain. In terms of location, milieu and script it is not a million miles removed from 'Glengarry Glen Ross', which is also stuffed with many of the same 'cuss words'. I'm familiar with both the original stage play and the successfully expanded film version of 'Glengarry' and there's no doubt to my mind which is the superior in terms of drama, construction and screenplay - and it's not 'Wolf'.
DiCaprio's other recent equally frenetic offering was, of course, in the recent Laz Buhrmann version of 'The Great Gatsby' - and once again it's the latter which takes away the honours, not least because the ups and downs of F.Scott Fitzgerald's intensely interesting story is something to which this vapid film cannot hold a candle. And Buhrmann's direction is far more involving than Scorsese's approach of 'sit back and watch'.

I have to say that DiCaprio is really good here in 'Wolf'. Since the time he began to be noticed some 20 years ago I always regarded him as being a bit stiff, but here he shows himself in total command, displaying a range of which I never knew he was capable.
I didn't know any other of the actors (well, apart from Matthew McConaughey, who disappears not far into the film - and Joanna Lumley in a small role!) so I don't find it so easy to divorce them from the almost exclusively odious characters they are portraying.

I don't think 'Wolf' is anywhere near the best that Scorsese's capable of nor what he's achieved to date, and I can't see this one being listed as being one of the greatest in his catalogue. But if I'm wrong, I'm wrong. Meanwhile...............................5.5/10

13 comments:

Tai, while the film was playing I was actually wondering if all the bust camera work, noise and frantic on-screen activity was designed to keep us awake. For me - and for you, it seems - it couldn't disguise the emptiness below the surface.

The subject matter of this film is of no interest to me. So tired of seeing (and reading about) the rise and fall of the corrupt and morally bankrupt. I just read this morning that the 85 richest people in the world have the same combined "wealth" as the 3.5 billion poorest people in the world. I'll skip this one. Thanks!

It's another of those 'Amorality Rules' tales, Mitch. It's a shame that in this one the revulsion which those like you and me feel to such people is not helped by his being punished at the end by what seems to me comparatively not much more than a slap on the wrist (though, of course, I'm not au fait with the American system of justice). As to inequalities of wealth, I do find it alarming (and scandalous) that in the U.K. the disparity between the amount of wealth possessed by the very few has INcreased year on year for more than the last twenty years - and is accelerating. In fact I just read recently that it will shortly be the same as it was 100 years ago, and likely to get even greater.. It was even increasing under our 'socialist' Labour government of 1997-2010, so what hope is there?

I wouldn't warn anyone off from going with an open mind, Bob. You may well be one of the significant number who enjoy it. In fact on IMDb it currently has an AVERAGE very high rating of 8.6, which is certainly rare.

It appears that I am in the minority here. I consider this to be the best film of 2013. DiCaprio is brilliant as a stockbroker caught up in the 80s excess. It runs a full three hours but feels like less than an hour. Just so much here. Drama, comedy farce - this film has it all.

The fact that we could ever have had such divergent views about any film, Paul, has astonished me, but it was bound to happen sometime. I've seen much the same views elsewhere as you've expressed, and that's no bad thing. I certainly don't think you're mistaken in any way. In fact it concerns me that I myself must have missed so much. But to set 'Wolf' in the same class as any of the films in my recent 2013 'Top Ten', let alone think it was better than all of them, well that would be an impossible step for me to take.In my 'defence' I'd point out that it did end up with my rating it very slightly above average. In fact on IMDb, where half-points are not possible, I scored it with a '6'. I'm with you in thinking that this is Leonardo's best performance to date, even eclipsing 'Gatsby' where his performance was also extraordinary. I only wish I too didn't think that the film was all show with little underneath - and on a looking-at-my-watch count it rated so high..

You've said in a few words PRECISELY what I feel too. Although it's a 'trademark' characteristic his films, for me his very best have been those which do NOT involve gangsters, big-time crime and major violence - I'd nominate 'Hugo', 'The Age of Innocence', 'The King of Comedy'. 'After Hours' ...... I could go on. He's a maverick director but still one who is impossible to ignore. In my all-time Top 50 films he might have 2 or 3, but I doubt if there'd be many more. (Mind you 2 or 3 out of 50 ain't all that bad either!)

Opinions vary, Dr Spo but I did find that the main character (well played by Leo DiC) is so obnoxious that his fate at the hand of justice, when it eventually arrives, seems to be low penance in comparison to what he gets away. with. But since Paul above said that he thought the film was a farce (in the true sense of the word) I'm beginning to wonder if I was seeing it from the correct angle. But I don't think I could bear to fork out money to see it again. Perhaps when it comes on TV I might make an effort to take a less judgmental view.